The December edition of MSDN Magazine is out, and is as usual available online at http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag. One of the articles well worth checking out is the “Ten Essential Tools: Visual Studio Add-Ins Every Developer Should Download Now”.

The author, James Avery, lists the following ten essential tools:

• TestDriven.NET (helps you test your code)
• GhostDoc (helps you write documentation faster)
• Smart Paster (lets you paste code as comment, string, string builder, region etc)
• CodeKeep (snippet repository)
• PInvoke.Net (look up how to access Win32 API calls and get examples online)
• VSWindowManager PowerToy (store your different VS2005 window layouts)
• WSContractFirst (helps you write contract first web service applications)
• VSMouseBindings (speed up your VS2005 development using mouse actions)
• CopySourceAsHTML (copies your source as formatted HTML)
• Cache Visualizer (visualise the ASP.NET cache during debug)

The article contains more information about the tools and download links. The article can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/12/VisualStudioAddins/default.aspx.

Another great list of excellent tools can be found at Scott Hanselmans blog: Scott Hanselman’s 2005 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List.